Devon Ellington publishes under a half a dozen names in both fiction and nonfiction. Her work appears in publications including Wild Child, Rose and Thorn, Hampton Family Life, Emerging Women Writers, Femmefan and Toasted Cheese. Her plays are produced in New York, Los Angeles, London, Edinburgh and Australia. For two years, she wrote four serials in four genres—mystery, western, magical realism and action/adventure/pirate—for Keep It Coming. She writes the Literary Athlete column for The Scruffy Dog Review, her Web site is www.devonellingtonwork.com and her blog on the writing life is Ink in My Coffee (devonellington.wordpress.com).
In his mind, Harry Elliott has always been a Bond Girl. So if you see him on the street, please refer to him only by his Bond Girl name, “Dude LooksLikeaLady.” Harry works in product development for a “major” dot com. While not making the Internet more user-friendly, Harry thinks of himself as a creative and freelance writer, and has the record for the most single-post blogs in history. Harry lives and breathes in the exhaust-scented city of Chicago, exactly a mile and a half due north of the left-field bleachers of Wrigley Field.
P. N. Elrod is the print-published author of over 20 novels and 20 short stories, and is best known for her ongoing hard-boiled noir series The Vampire Files. She has cowritten three novels with actor/writer Nigel Bennett. She’s edited three collections, including coediting Stepping Through the Stargate for BenBella Books, and is working on a fourth, and writing, writing, writing. Her Web site is www.vampwriter.com. She would love to buy Harvey a drink and talk about Crichton’s lesser-traveled subconscious paths, especially if it includes dish on where he got those leather pants.
Hal Elrod is a family man, first and foremost. He is a loyal husband to his wife of 14 years and a dedicated father to their two children. He has also lived a life that would break most people but has somehow managed to turn all of his adversities into perspectives and practices that have helped millions of people transform their lives.
After surviving multiple near-death experiences—including a head-on car crash with a drunk driver at age nineteen that left him clinically dead for six minutes, and a rare form of cancer which doctors gave him a 20 to 30 percent chance of surviving—he is on a mission to help individuals transform their lives and to elevate the consciousness of humanity, one morning and one person at a time. As the author of 12 books, which have sold over 3 million copies, been translated into 37 languages, and have over 30,000 five-star reviews—he’s doing exactly that.
Courtney Emerson is the co-founder and former chief operating officer of All In Together (AIT), a non-partisan nonprofit that encourages, educates, and empowers voting-age American women to fully participate in America’s civic and political life. As COO of AIT, she led partnerships, training and community-building programs, and designed the civic education curriculum, which has reached tens of thousands of women across the country. Courtney has spoken at conferences and companies around the country, including Facebook, The Wing, Lyft, Oxford University’s Power Shift Summit, the Democratic National Committee’s Women’s Leadership Forum, the YWCA of NYC, and many others. She has written for Refinery29, OZY, HuffPost, The Hill, and New York Daily News. Formerly a vice president at the Center for Talent Innovation, she advised Fortune 500 and global companies on the design and delivery of diversity and inclusion initiatives. Courtney graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in politics.
Books by Courtney Emerson
Rick Emerson is a longtime radio and television broadcaster, the former host of the nationally-syndicated Rick Emerson Show, and the co-author (with Lisa Desjardins) of Zombie Economics: A Guide to Personal Finance. He’s a regular guest on America’s finer podcasts, and can be seen in occasional television roles, as well as in several independent films and a truly dreadful commercial for tires. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his two dogs, Willard and Philo.
Abbie Emmons has been writing stories ever since she could hold a pencil. What started as an intrinsic love for storytelling became her lifelong passion. For over seven years, Emmons has been sharing her wisdom on her YouTube channel (@AbbieEmmons), where she teaches writers how to make their stories matter by harnessing the power and psychology of storytelling to transform their ideas into masterpieces.
Drawing on her passion for psychology and neuroscience, she’s made it her mission to decode the “story instincts” we all naturally possess. What started as a personal quest to improve her writing skills has overflowed into a vibrant online community of half a million passionate writers who have connected with Emmons’s creed to “make your story matter.” Emmons went on to launch Abbie’s Story University, an online learning platform that has attracted thousands of students worldwide. Through monthly live lectures and in-depth courses, Abbie’s Story University offers comprehensive instruction on creative writing, editing, publishing, and more, nurturing a thriving community of writers dedicated to honing their craft.
Susan Engel earned a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College in 1980, and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from CUNY Graduate Center in 1985. She is currently a senior lecturer in psychology and director of the Program in Teaching at Williams College. Engel has taught students from age 3 to adults. In addition to journal articles and book chapters, Engel has written three books, The Stories Children Tell: Making Sense of the Narratives of Childhood (W. H. Freeman, 1985), Context Is Everything: The Nature of Memory (W. H. Freeman, 1997) and most recently, Real Kids: Creating Meaning in Everyday Life (Harvard University Press, 2005). She is also the co-founder and educational adviser to an experimental school in eastern Long Island, the Hayground School, and writes a regular column on teaching, “Lessons,” for the New York Times. Engel’s research interests include the development of autobiographical memory, narrative processes in childhood, imagination and play in childhood and the development of curiosity. She lives with her husband and three sons in New Marlborough, Mass.
Beverly Engel is an internationally recognized psychotherapist and an acclaimed advocate for victims of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. She is the author of 21 self-help books, including 4 bestselling books on emotional abuse: The Emotionally Abusive Relationship, The Emotionally Abused Woman, Encouragements for the Emotionally Abused Woman, and Healing Your Emotional Self. Her latest book, It Wasn’t Your Fault: Freeing Yourself from the Shame of Childhood Abuse with the Power of Self-Compassion came out in January of 2015. Engel is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and has been practicing psychotherapy for 35 years.
Beverly’s books have often been honored for various awards, including being a finalist in the Books for a Better Life award. Many of her books have been chosen for various book clubs, including One Spirit Book Club, Psychology Today Book Club, and Behavioral Sciences Book Club. Beverly frequently lends her expertise to national television talk shows, and has appeared on Oprah, CNN, Starting Over, and many other TV programs. She has a blog on the Psychology Today website as well as regularly contributing to the Psychology Today magazine, and has been featured in a number of newspapers and magazines, including: Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, Marie Claire, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and The Denver Post.
Renee Engeln-Maddox, Ph.D., is a faculty member in the department of psychology at Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.). She earned an M.A. in clinical psychology from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), and a doctorate in social psychology from Loyola University, Chicago. Her research interests include portrayals of women in the media, body image disturbance and media literacy.
